Preserved
by CRMediaGal
Summary: Hermione has an answer to Tom Riddle's long-standing, awaited question. Happy Halloween. One-shot. Written for #SpookyScaryDuleween on Tumblr.


**A/N : Although this is not as polished as I would have liked (and it's my first attempt at writing Tomione!), I hope anyone interested enjoys it! This was written for #SpookyScaryDulceween on Tumblr. Happy Halloween!**

 **Disclaimer : _Harry Potter_ is copyrighted to and belongs to JK Rowling. I'm just playing in her sandbox. No money, just fun. Artwork is credited to Itygirl on DeviantArt and entitled, "You!"**

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A shiver coursed down her spine, but Hermione Granger willed it away and took an eager step closer, craning her neck to peak around the bend beneath the stairs. The person she sought—and stared at questioningly—towered feet from her, standing perfectly still and with his back turned. His tall silhouette was cast in shadow, though she wasn't fooled by his quiet demeanour that might suggest that he wasn't aware of being watched.

Tom Riddle knew that the bushy-haired Muggle-born had come at last, with the intent of providing him an answer to the long-suffering question he had posed to her back in her second year of school. Six excruciating years had passed since then, most of their individual time spent combating war, destruction, and necessary grief. (Well, the latter had been entirely Hermione's). She didn't have to prolong her wallowing despair anymore, though, prepared for what this visit would surely mean.

"Why do you hesitate?" he suddenly spoke, whispering like a cat might purr for its master's attention. Hermione jolted and crept out of hiding. She knew that she was no sovereign here in this colourless, lifeless space that existed somewhere between his past and her present. "You've been here before."

"Have I?" Her curious eyes roamed their silent, serene surroundings. _Yes_. She recognised the familiar stone and hanging torches flickering along the walls. _Hogwarts._ Yet, it wasn't quite as it had been. "I don't recognise this part of the castle."

"No, you wouldn't."

There was a knowing smirk to his delivery that goaded Hermione to narrow her eyes. "Are we in the Room of Requirement?" She stepped beneath an archway and into the shadows, approaching the wizard without suspect. He still hadn't turned to face her. "Some secret passageway that only a Slytherin would know of?"

"Perhaps," came his simple, eerily humorous reply. "Clever guess."

At last, he whirled around to leer at her plainly, his school robes billowing at the ankles. He was intense-looking, a striking combination of soft, brown tresses and razor-edged features seemingly carved out of marble rather than mortal, delicate flesh—and a far cry from the unrecognisable being he would later become.

The foreshadowing made Hermione's heart clench. She searched his careful, unreadable expression, her own thoughtful and measured. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, does it?" she eventually proposed, and the heaviness of those words lingered well after.

Dark, pensive eyes, not yet soulless, tore from Hermione's gaze to briefly inspect the ceilings. It was a diversion Hermione had seen before here and in this place; a futile attempt to keep her at an arm's length. She could sense that he was pleased that she had come, however, even if he had yet to express as much.

Finally, Tom's eyes fell back on her, slightly more agreeable than before. "What changed your mind, Granger?"

Hermione cocked her head. "I never strayed from my initial beliefs."

His eyes sharpened into slits. "Then you still don't think—"

"That we could make it work in the present time? I'm afraid not. I was right, wasn't I? Even after all my painstaking efforts to reconfigure the magic that ultimately destroyed your diary, I must take you as you are: a memory."

"How very disappointing."

"Perhaps for you it is, but not for me."

"Then you've decided?" The corners of his mouth curled upward, beckoning. "If you choose to stay, Granger, you won't be able to return to your life."

"I know the terms, Riddle."

Impressed by the witch's self-assuredness, he added, his drawl low and smooth, "Your body will die."

"You think that matters to me now?" The stunted laughter that trickled up from the back of her throat sounded as lifeless as the question, and Tom paused. "I haven't been much for living these days… I've seen too much; I've lost too much. Trust me when I tell you that it's of no consequence to me."

Something that had previously gone undetected cracked the surface of her tough exterior, crumbling the fragility in her face and warm, brown eyes. That breath-taking wilfulness—the desperate yearning to exit the world she had tried to live in since battling and conquering his—forced Tom's feet apart. He slithered closer and gently grasped her chin in his hand, his ears catching the small hitching breath she made to his touch.

"You've chosen to join me rather than to stay. Remarkable."

A quirk of a smile broke Hermione's lips, a visual the dark wizard welcomed. "You sound surprised."

"It's not what I would do."

"No…and that's where you were always so sorely mistaken, Riddle: life alone isn't always worth battling. Sometimes death, with a companion, can be far more welcoming an adventure."

Tom offered her an openly puzzled frown. "I still question you making this dec—"

"You presented me with a choice. There's propriety in that that doesn't go overlooked."

A glimmer of _something_ —regret, shock, or horror, perhaps, Hermione didn't know—passed over Tom's murky-coloured eyes and vanished. "You _are_ clever, Granger," he slowly breathed in awe, "if not terribly misguided in your decision-making."

"My soul will determine that for itself."

"Ahhh, but you see, I have no soul."

"I suspect you don't."

Her giggle had Tom inching closer still, the frost on his breath whiffing at Hermione's cheeks. "And you still accept my conditions?"

Hermione visibly shuddered. " _Yes_." She stared up at him imploringly, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. "Can I stay, Riddle...for good?"

A magnificent grin of bone-chilling delight spread across Tom's lips. He answered, as he leaned down to capture her love-struck mouth, "You may, Granger. Consider yourself _mine_."

Hermione accepted his ravenous kiss of death, resolved to be trapped and soulless and likely forgotten between the blank pages of Tom Riddle's fractured, secretly resurrected diary. The slate for them was empty, untapped; a pathless wonder which she and Tom could reign as two bloodless spirits, writing their own private story.

It was all Hermione Granger could have wanted after much emotional torment: preserved for all eternity in an old, foresaken tome alongside her beloved. _Forever._

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 **A/N #2 : Thank you for reading. Reviews are always greatly appreciated.**


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